Colorless
by EEstelle
Summary: All humans have colors, from the moment they're born to the moment they fade and die. That's how I see them. But then I met someone that didn't; I called him L. After wandering around for an eternity as Death, one day on a lonely street, the colorless man caught my eye... Oneshot. Death's perspective on meeting L. Reviews met with brownie points. T to be safe, but could be K plus.


**A/N:** Hello! If you're reading this, thank you! I'm actually surprised. I'll just warn you now, it's an odd story, and I just finished watching Death Note for the first time this week, so you could say I'm a pretty new fan... you know, kind of. :) That being said, if you find any egregious errors or have any advice, I would love to hear from you. Just by the nature of crossover fanfiction, and the fact that I'm writing about death in a fandom that already contains death gods, I know I'm taking some major creative liberties. But it's been a long time since I read the Book Thief, too, so I wouldn't mind any comments or criticisms you can spare.

Anyway... boring author petition for help over, hope you enjoy the story! To be honest, I wrote it more for emotional therapy after losing L than anything. Anyone else die a little bit or a lot on the inside at that point? Seriously, come rant at me. It's only fair, considering I'm dumping my I'm-too-attached-to-fictional-characters rant on you. :)

Thanks again and have a great week!

-Echo

Ps- I know no one will do this, but listen to the lyrics of "The Sound of Silence." I don't think I've ever heard anything that so perfectly describes Death Note.

 **Colorless**

On days when the dark is most consuming and I don't want to do this anymore, I think of the man without a color. All humans have colors, from the saffron yellow of an infant to the man wrapped in a summer green haze. I see them all as I go about my business, carrying away their souls amid the lustrous parade, but they never see me. I go unnoticed, (humans never expect Death until it comes,) and I try not to notice the holes they make when they're gone. Most I forget and prefer it that way; I especially don't want to remember the ones taken before their time. But him I can't help but remember, the man without a color, a name, or for all the world, a face. A man whose lifespan was marked by how long it took Kira to identify him.

I've seen him, but I still don't know his name. I don't need it. I call him L.

An odd name perhaps, but odd suited him right from the beginning. I met him on the first of many terrible days in his life. It was a dreary morning, cold and miserable as it should be when a boy loses his mother, and the wet, sticky fog made up for the tears that couldn't fall from his protuberant eyes. I had just reached for her soul, right as her pale pink tint was doused, when I saw him. Perched on the curb with his fingers at his mouth and his knees tucked in, he rocked back and forth without saying a word. Children are supposed to cry when I take their parents; I expected him to bargain or at the very least, plea, but I didn't expect this: I think he saw me. When I took her, he reached out, trying to come, too, but knowing we'd leave him behind. I ruffled his hair, but the wind was strong, so he shouldn't have noticed. He did, though; I could tell. His color was periwinkle blue then, back before his hue vanished. Blue suited him as much as his title, and so, too, did his silence.

Of course, that was all I thought of him then. He was just a peculiar child. He saw me, and I him, and then we parted ways. Nothing less and nothing more. That was how it stayed for many years, until a woman went missing and they couldn't solve the case. I got there just before he did. He was a young man then, and painted periwinkle as he had been as a boy; the shade was unmistakable. But the color was paler. I didn't notice. He watched me, and I him, as I lifted her soul in my arms and walked away. Two weeks later, we met again when I came for the woman's killer.

It was soon afterward that I began to follow him, and with frequent visits it didn't take me long to recognize the change. His color was fading, even as his fame spread across the world. Everyone, and no one knew him. I alone knew that it was his mother that had been the one to teach him that life was a game, and that it was her death that had taught him how it was played. The boy grew up, and built a name for himself, and a life for himself, and he went about by himself changing the meaning of justice. And always, I was watching. Most times he saw me coming, though there were a handful of incidences in which he didn't. But unlike most humans, this human didn't let what he was feeling show in his demeanor or on his face.

He was a ghost, one that no one really saw or understood. I followed him from that point on because he was like me.

We never spoke during those years, and why should we? As Death, I could hardly expect him to, and I was not accustomed to making contact with humans. But then came the dark years and the Kira case. The vibrant smiles, the kaleidoscopic parade I traipsed through, were things of the past. The humans dimmed, their colors muted, when a new threat moved in. I knew it was only a matter of time before L was called to catch the culprit.

It was a matter of duty to him, yes, but I thought it also a matter of pride. I didn't guess the truth, or realize how many horrors lurked along the path it would create for him, but I knew where it would lead. I wish I could have told him what it would cost him, though it wouldn't have changed the outcome. Come to think of it, he probably already suspected it would result in his death.

I remember the first gleams of understanding in Light Yagami's eyes the night Kira was born inside. It was my task to tear away the souls written out of their bodies by the death note, and the crushed victims of that first four-way "accident" wouldn't be the only ones who fought me to remain over the next six years. Limp though they were, almost all of them clung to their bodies in refusal to come free. Ryuk was laughing, for once the one who could be seen but couldn't see. I saw him, but I'm as much a mystery to the shinigami as the shinigami are to this world, though they claim themselves gods. I brushed past him, wondering if he would laugh harder, or not at all, if he knew humans the way I do.

I pity the shinigami's blindness, you know, quite as much as I pity the frailty of men.

That was the just the beginning, and I knew it. But as with all things in reality, it was my duty- as much as it was Light's to kill and L's to save- to watch and wait from the sidelines.

It didn't stop me from finding L that night, though, and many nights after. There were numerous times I came to claim him, yet, though his life hung on by a thread, I was allowed to let him go. Did he see me, lurking in the shadows just as he did as a child? I think so; in fact, he saw me more clearly during those years than he ever had. One night in particular stands out in memory, and it will haunt me, and comfort me, as long as this world still stands.

It was late, far later than is strictly acceptable, but L never cared about such things. Or maybe he didn't notice, with so many thoughts whirling inside of his head. L didn't sleep much, particularly during a case, and his mind probably never. Lying in the dark and cocooned so that only his obsidian eyes and tufts of raven hair interrupted the white of his face and sheets, the man swung his feet over the bedside and tiptoed to the windowsill. As ever, I was reminded of a bird with broken wings, one who wanted to fly but couldn't get out of the nest resting high in a burning tree. I sidestepped him before he could glide through me, but a glance told me he sensed my presence. Bathed in moonlight, his eyebrows creased in deep thought, I couldn't resist a smile when he retrieved a stash of candy from a hidden compartment in the window bench.

"He's coming for me, and soon. I can't prove it, so there's nothing to do but to let it play out. At least if he kills me now they'll catch him. Assuming it is him. _Light Yagami_. I'm seventy percent certain."

No one else was in the room, but his gaze was fixed on the moon. The stars tinged his skin in silver, and he seemed to glow. He always had an air of the ethereal, but I could almost believe I was really there and he could hear me- breathing, being, living in the empty room.

"He's watching, waiting for something. If I could only determine what… It can't be the obvious or he never would have let Misa out of his sight…"

Taking a bite of a caramel crunch chocolate bar, the man turned around and sat on the ledge, curling his feet up exactly as he had as a child, all those years ago.

"What I'd really like to know," he mused after a long pause, "is how he's doing it. If it's simple enough to continue this long, why doesn't he just… but I've survived thus far… still, it won't be long now.

"What will they do? Will they be able to stop him, when I'm gone? Convincing them won't be easy… What do you think?"

Something about his demeanor changed, and by chance or fate, his intense gaze flickered once around the room and landed directly on mine. It was impossible, or perhaps… only improbable?...that he could see me. If I was mortal, a chill would've run down my spine. He was asking me what would happen if- no, _when_ \- he died.

Though I had never said a word before, my response was instinctive: "They are not you, but I think they will try."

"But do they believe me?" he said. "Will they be able to look past their feelings if it is Light? Yagami is a good man, but his son… it is too much to ask of most people."

I wait for his gaze to waver, but it doesn't. I whisper, "But it was too much for them to ask you to die."

He doesn't answer, and I know now that he doesn't really hear me, but I continue to pretend. When humans talk to themselves alone, I wonder if they know that sometimes Death talks back.

We sit in silence for a moment, and L finally stands, stretching his arms so that the sheets spread below them like a lopsided pair of wings, before he nestles back in bed. The silver glow retreats back to the sky, and my colorless human is just that again. Tentatively, I settle on the end of his mattress and listen to his breathing, waiting for him to say more or reveal that he's asleep. He does both, and I wonder if he was dreaming, or what he was thinking, when he whispered right before he began to softly snore: " _Please stay with me_."

I did. Whoever he meant the message for, I stayed with him. Criminals dropped like flies around us, and he continued to search for their justice while I continued to rip away their souls. L talked to me for most of it, and every night that he did, I answered back. Our conversations only stopped when the handcuffs went on, tying L to Light like a lifeline. He couldn't very well tell Light all of his secrets, and muttering to himself would not only be strange, but suspicious. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss him.

Light's color was red, if you're wondering, and there were moments when they were together that I almost believed L's had gone red, too. They were similar, and they were different. But what they had most in common was me. Every move they made, I obeyed them, to one an ally, and to one a pawn. But unlike a game of chess, I know who will win. I've seen enough of this world of demons and angels to know that the answer is no one.

Still, I almost believed L could win this war. Almost. But then came the day that changed everything. Then came the day that my human, as all humans do, died.

Watari was my first pick up. I found him in the computer room, slumped onto the floor. His soul was tired, and wanted to be free, but he still fought me to save L. I wish I could have let him.

It's rare that I have to take a shinigami, but Rem didn't protest. She was next. She'd chosen me. I slipped her quietly over my shoulder in the aftermath her sacrificial death.

And then the worst part. How often I had wanted to meet my little human, to talk to him as he had talked to me so many times. How often I'd wanted to ask him what went on behind those fathomless, protuberant, luminescent eyes. How often I'd smiled at his odd mannerisms- the way he loped and spoke and tapped his toes when he huddled in a chair. How often I'd wished that I could cry at the things he said when he was so very, very alone.

But I didn't want him yet. It shouldn't have been his time. I could blame Rem, but it had always been Light who set the stage. I could only watch as the spoon slipped from L's fingers, glimmering through the air and clattering on the cool, hard floor. It was licked clean of the sugary froth that so often adorned it; L may not have known much of a normal life, but he knew how to enjoy a chocolate-drizzled, strawberry-topped, cream-filled delicacy better than anyone. It should have been a heart attack that killed him, I thought humorlessly, if only to avoid the truth. But instead, it was a cursed black book and a pen that claimed him.

Once upon a time, I recalled just such a book, written by a little girl, that saved her life. If memory serves, that story had started with yet another little black tome- The Gravedigger's Handbook. Ironic, I think to pass the seconds before the inevitable. Who would have guessed back then that it would someday be just the opposite, and a book would kill so many, line by line and page by page?

Light's eyes glowed malevolently as he sneered down at the man in his arms. He thought he'd won, but he'd realize someday how very wrong he was. L stared up at him, blank and emotionless as always, seeming so innocent and pale beneath the angry crimson-black of Light's aura. He crumbled onto the floor, his heart slowing a beat at a time, and I waited. Even though I've been around an eternity, I've never seen anyone else without a color. If I couldn't see his aura dim, how was I to know when to approach?

That was when I saw it. As the life leeched out of him, as his eyes closed, and as Light backed away, I glimpsed a faint glow. It was blue, periwinkle blue, with a hint of silver. It radiated from him, just as it had when I'd first met the child perching on a curb beside his dying mother years ago. The outline of his soul separate from his body was becoming visible now, and unlike the countless other victims of the death note, he was trying to sit up. Soundlessly, I stepped toward him, gently lifting him into my arms.

His soul was ragged and torn, faded in some places, calloused in others, and overarchingly pitifully small. But he was illuminated in blue; colored in death as they were colored in life. Limp and broken though he was, he stared unblinkingly into my old, dead eyes.

He spoke, slowly and softly, before I could take him away.

"I can't go with you… not… not yet. _Light_. I have to stop Light. I have to…"

His protest was unexpected since he'd broken free rather easily. I shook my head; "You don't have to. Never again." His aura flickered.

"I have to see him. These people need me."

He tried to rise, but the words were out of my mouth before I could consider them: "And I don't?"

We were silent though the chaos thundered around us, swirling into a storm that in the end, however far away, Kira would not be able to control. Amid the turmoil, I echoed the words he'd once said to me whether he remembered or not:

" _Please, stay with me._ Please don't go."

He and I both knew he couldn't return, no matter what my answer had been and no matter what he said. I carried him away in silence, into the shadows that I call home.

But his story doesn't quite end there. The mystery of the man with the missing color was beyond my comprehension, but as with all puzzles, it was one that only the great and strange L could help me solve. It came to me in a cemetery, when he, and I, and those few others who in some capacity knew him, laid L's body to rest.

It was a small funeral. Even though the whole world was different because of his life, (despite his insistence that no one could change the world on their own,) his true existence was something that almost no one was allowed to know. Even those seldom acquaintances from his childhood wouldn't be informed until sometime later, and in truth, L thought it better this way. Souls don't often stay with me long after their departure from mortality, but my human wasn't like other humans, as I've said before. He'd always wondered what would go on at his funeral, and for someone so inquisitive, it seemed a pity not to let him find out. That, and I couldn't bear to say no.

There was rain and fog that evening, just like there had been the day his mother died, and it was fitting for a time to remember a lost friend. The front row was occupied by the members of the taskforce that still fought to capture Kira, dressed in black suits with dark rings beneath their eyes. Only Light Yagami's solemnity was an act, and he alone shone a bright hue beside the gilded coffin. I waited in the wings, but L flew all the way to him. He settled by Light's feet in the dewy grass.

I didn't watch the service, but I watched him. Half the time he listened with a mildly amused expression on his face. The other half, he talked, knowing as he must have that the boy couldn't hear him. When the service ended, L stood up when Light did, and he listened as Light spoke to the rest of team in turn. It was only once Light hopped into a car and drove off that L stayed behind and waved to him, stuck his hands deep into his pockets, and strode away.

There's something I haven't told you, but you can probably guess; a person's color correlates to the emotions a person feels when they are alive. Pain, happiness, fear- all of these things color a person, shining deeper for the things they hate and brighter for the things they love. As the sky darkened all around him, and as the lightning flashed, and the cars pulled away; and as the wind moaned and the grass dripped, and as a dead corpse was left to sleep in the deep ground, I finally understood the man that hadn't had a color then, but that had a color now.

"How long have you known?" I asked him as he stopped before me. He chewed the inside of his lip, tilting his head.

"I could ask the same. Hm. When did you figure it out?"

I think my answer surprised me more than it did him, (if Death can be surprised,) but it was immediate.

"Here and now, but I think I have always known."

"I see… come on, then," he said, turning. "It's time to go."

And as I always have and always would have, had that not been the end, I followed him out. That was the last I ever heard from L, my human, the mysterious man who didn't need a name, didn't show a face, who it took me a lifetime to come to understand.

L's secret was this: he didn't love life. L loved Death.

Oh, he wanted to. Humans are interesting in that way. They think they all have to be the same, and they are the same in their loathing of me, almost entirely. But L dared to be different because he _was_ different, from the moment I entered his life at childhood to the moment I escorted him to its end.

He didn't fear me like they did. He tried to avoid me, as any man must do. They needed him, and when he finally came to me, it's true that many more died than otherwise would have. That was my only regret, and I have a feeling it was L's, too. I can only hope he one day forgives himself for it.

Long after I claimed my human, Kira continued to conquer the world, sending souls my way day after day, month after month, year after year, and life after life. Their greatest protector was gone, and (despite his protests,) the world would never be the same for it.

L took the dark path because of what he'd seen when he met me, and because of what he knew lurked out in the deepest crevices of the world. Someone had to stop it- that cold, drafty shadow, and why not him? If he could save them, it was worth it. If he could stop the ones responsible, he would do it. He was alone, he was friendless, and he could see the things that others couldn't. He never really had a chance to know what it was like to live a normal life, with a family and friends, surrounded by people to love. Like I said, life was a game, and Death taught him how to play it. How was I supposed to know he would risk it all to save them, and lose it all in the process, and that I would be the one to blame when he fell?

That was why he'd faced evil head on when he could have hidden in the fringes. That was why he'd solved so many cases with so little worry about himself. Best case and he saved them. Worst case and he died. Neither held horror for him. And that simple acceptance only intensified when he met Light.

Light was so like him- intelligent, dangerous, willing to teeter on the brink of destruction. No, Light never loved me like L did. But he often walked with me, step by step and side by side. That was what L saw in him- had always seen in him. He had looked at Light and seen me. No matter what Light had done, no matter what Light was, he was the closest he ever got to a friend. And like any friend, he had given L the peace that he secretly wanted most.

Today is one of those days that I don't want to do this, that I'm tired of taking the souls the death note steals. Today is one of those days that I don't want to remember everything I've seen, all the destruction and all the pain. Today is one of those days where no sort of end is in sight, but I know it's coming. Light will be mine soon, and when that time comes, it'll be a busy day. I have no doubt that he will be red, both his color and his blood, and I will watch it dim, and I will carry his limp, damaged soul away.

And away.

And away.

And I'll go on doing it, as long as the world still stands. I won't remember him, probably, except the massive hole that will be filled when he leaves his life behind. I will say goodbye to Kira, and I will forget him. But there is someone I will remember.

I'll remember, as I trudge through the shadows of the world, a blue gleam on a dark day. I'll remember a broken bird in the moonlight, surrounded by color traipsing by in a bright parade. I'll remember talking to the one who couldn't hear me, but knew that I was there; the one that gazed around on a cold world in search of someone to save. And I'll remember my human- the soul without a color- that loved Death more than life.

And that memory- one happy memory in my own colorless world- will continue to shine a vivid, periwinkle blue, every night of my eternity. And L, the colorless man, will never be written from this odd little existence again; glowing mysteriously from the shadows with the living hope of the dead.


End file.
